A sampling of the post-debate reaction:
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“He improved, exceeded expectations, decisively won several exchanges. She could have landed a death blow tonight and did not.”
- Guy Benson, political editor at the conservative website Townhall
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“I’m a Muslim, and I would like to report a crazy man threatening a woman on a stage in Missouri.”
- Moustafa Bayoumi, author of This Muslim American Life and professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY
“I may not care for Trump, but he beat Hillary tonight fair and square even with Martha Raddatz trying to defeat him.”
- Erick Erickson, writer for the conservative blog The Resurgent
“Donald Trump knows he won’t be president. He’s now in full carnival-barking, network-launching, party-nuking mode — a scowling, pouting menace who threatened during a nationally televised debate to throw Hillary Clinton in jail and called her husband the most sexually abusive man in political history.”
- Ron Fournier, writer for The Atlantic
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“In keeping her cool and indicting Trump’s bad behaviour and finally provoking him to threaten to put her in jail, she made certain no one not already in Trump’s corner would sign on with him.”
- Jennifer Rubin, writer for The Washington Post’s Right Turn blog
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“All the Republicans who backed away from @realDonaldTrump look really stupid right now.”
- Laura Ingraham, conservative commentator and editor of LifeZette
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“Trump looks and sounds defeated. Almost incoherent ...”
- Marc Lamont Hill, Morehouse College professor
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“She had a chance to throw a knockout punch at Donald Trump and instead looked more at times like Glass Joe from Nintendo’s Punch-Out. I lost count how many times she said to go to her website or whine about the lack of “fact checking” as the debate went on. Trump had her on the ropes several times.”
- Jay Caruso, blogger for the conservative website Red State
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“Trump picked Putin over Pence, explicitly abandoned Aleppo, lied about Iraq again & again, & showed his appalling temperament.”
- Ken Gude, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal group
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“With references to Lewinsky scandal, e-mails, Benghazi, attacking media, Trump likely shored up his base. Hard to see him leaving ticket.”
- Perry Bacon junior, political reporter for NBC News
